News Website Experience Round III

From my experience of checking diffrent news websites daily, I would say my eyes are trained to certain tendencies that I have gotten use to. When experiencing new news websites, I tend to feel out of place with things my eyes are trained to look for are out of place. Here are my news sites and my thoughts about them.

Chicago Tribune: What I like about the tribune is the content that you can find from browsing around. There’s loaded information from the news headlines and the layout seems to be functional though some others tend to not agree with me. I believe however it varies from day to day personally, being on this websites a few times it varies on the content of the day. Some days I think it does look cluttered with headlines all over and majority of the times I find it neatly organized. The downfall that most people and I do agree as well is the ads that seem everywhere and are pretty big.

Atlanta Journal Constitution: This site seems above average in my opinion, like the tribune the layout seems close to similar but the Journal seems a little more text heavy with browsing around for content. Pictures make the connection to headlines but overall has a nice, clean feel with great organizational structure. Media content was easy to find but seems above average.

West Seattle Blog: This site seems to be the trend in news articles and information. The West Seattle blog sounds exactly what it is and that’s a  blog. Everything seems chronologically placed, but at the same time as far as a professional layout, I would say this does lack that. However for local headlines and news who does it better than the people that knows the streets. But this does lack the eye test.

BBC: Ahhh yes the good old BBC, my place for international flavor with content. Something about finding international news that takes you out of the bias news headlines that many of us are accustom to. The layout is also neatly and colorful placed, but it could be a little confusing for someone that has been trained to domestic websites. The BBC however does a great job with connecting overall content with great media usage in a vast varieties of ways. The theme that I would say that it has is simplicity.

Baltimore Sun: The Sun would be my idea of organized chaos. In a society that thirst for time, this would be my ideal situation when trying to find and browse to different sections of the news website. The contents are neatly placed on the side but however their are headlines and breaking news that are organized in structured shapes and cemetery and bright titles that stick out. Like other websites though, ads are the thing that kills me with flash ads popping up and glaring everywhere this is a distraction. However I’m just a fan of these sites for some reason but I do understand why people think there  needs to be less content.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: This would be my favorite overall website for a few reason. Organizational structure that contains great headlines with pictures, different news section are neatly placed at the top of the websites, and the media structure was connected with headlines. The thing that I also liked about the Gazette that placed this site above others is that the ads do not get in the way of the news structures that are placed on the right side and also they’re not to big.

For my personal taste, the best news websites needs to have great content that are easy on the eyes, but jump out at ya. No this is not a contradiction call it organized chaos if you want but also it needs to not be cluttered. I’m a fan of neat, clean, organized sites with good displays such as pictures or blogs that are easy to find.

 

Digitalante Justice for all?

The reading this week was an article was Digilante Justice and how the web has opened up new doors for citizens that want to take street justice in their hands but by doing on the internet. Ruth Martin talked about how the trend on the web is to post your frustrations about reckless drivers that you encounter by posting their license plate numbers and the vent about incident. This is one of many ways the internet has changed the way citizens has taken justice by the hands when the real justice can not. Have you ever had a situation when you want to vent some frustrations or place your anger about something that happened? Most likely someone else has been in your situation and more than likely there’s a website that you can tell everyone about it.

Because there are limited to no filters to control what gets posted about someone, anyone can post something up at anytime about another. Though I do understand the purposes of the websites, I still do look at the downfall of this. Think about the negative implications that it could have against another person that is innocent. I remember awhile ago that my friends name was posted on a website because his name was linked to a car theft ring and was thrown around in many of car forums in Portland and because of that lost a lot of buisness as his name was thrown around in the mud. Because of this situation, I do have my own bias towards websites just because it gives respondents total control of commentary. It does however lets people voice their opinions, and does allow people to take control when justice can’t be served. For me I’m just a little optimistic about digilante websites and I’m a little bit more cautious than most.

Q’s of the week

1. What digitalante websites do you check or use?

2. What are some of the things you would change in creating a filter for these sites?

3. What are your personal feelings about these websites?

 

Divided by Generations

To close the digital divisional gap smaller, a stronger technological literacy needs to be place in educational classrooms for not only young students but for teachers as well.Though the trend of digital divide has been to get accessibility of technology to the younger generations, another aspect needs to be placed to bridge the gap. This emphasis also needs to be placed in our teachers and classroom that educate our students in order to shorten the gap.

Digital divide occurs one a gap is placed when one group is blessed with access or information of the technological usage versus another that has little to no access of getting their hands on a digital device. Though efforts have been placed in other aspects of digital division, a new light needs to be placed by looking at our educational systems such as teachers and have them be educated on technological systems. As an instructor  from the Seattle School District, my stand is to invest in children by having teachers catching up with students by having them adjust to the learning style of the younger generation with online computer usage. According to Stephanie Vie (pg.10, 2008) “instructors and institutions in the late age of print need to rise to the challenge presented by students’ increased participation in online spaces.” By reinforcing digital usage structure in classroom, the division between the gaps grows smaller by having teachers actually knowing and adjusting to student’s new age of learning.

Working in the school systems as and striving towards being a full time teacher upon graduation, I noticed how most students seem more technological savvy than most  teachers who have little  ideas of even know how to use something small such as an email. These are also the teachers impact students day in and out in addition if they have small amounts of information or have no structure for digital usage in our classrooms, what good is it to get the younger generations access to devices?  “On average, these students spend a quarter of everyday interacting with various technologies; the majority of these individuals live in not just media-rich households, but media saturated households.”(pg.12,2008) By assisting teachers with technological knowledge or access, this would help schools be structured around subjects such as English literacy by using social network systems that can be accessed also by parents as well. For example on the web popularity has been geared towards multimedia sites such as Youtube and other sites, but if classroom systems use such ideas geared towards school systems this would help students understand online technology. Tracking homework or posting blogs would further enhance English and help create literacy for kids, and having access to programs for parents or guardians would allow them to be involved. These systems would be squared strictly for educational usage only but think about the expansion on how this would help students, at the same time this would all fall back if teachers would not have any digital computer literacy.

From my experience with interactions with students, I always thought about how I’m going to make an impact by educating our future generation. But by ignoring the technology usage in classrooms, teachers would defeat their purpose which is to be a teacher. Changing or adjusting our classrooms towards technological usage would bridge the gap from students to teacher by having our educators use rich programs that would develop our education systems. But this starts by educating our educators catch up with the students who are passing them up one website at a time. This would close the not only the generation gap but the digital as well.

Citations

Vie, S. (2008). Digital Divide 2.0 “Generation M” and Online Social Networking Sites in the Compositional Classroom. Computers and Composition , 25(9).Retrieved March 5, 2009, from allacademic research Web site:http://www.elsevier.com/authored_subject_sections/S06/S06_345/misc/computers_omposition1.pdf

Wikipedia Search, Retrieved on March 5,2009:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

 

The Internet for all

The internet has been a life changing system that has revolutionized the way people live and operate that is open to everyone. Reflecting back on my first encounters of the internet I did not think I was going to use it to the extent that I have. On a daily basis, I use it for almost for everything that I do and at times it’s revolved around it. The web has been an open source for everyone with limitations however. For example though it’s a source that can be used for everyone, not everyone has the opportunity of sources to use it. It’s called the world wide web and the name it’s self should be a tool that is used by everyone especially those with out the economic resources.

In the article for the class by Micheal Best, he brings out key points to due to lower cost wireless systems to lower rural places that do no have in which we can take for granted everyday.Though the article was printed in 2003, I wonder what has been the major changes since. Think about how peoples lives have been changed from the internet in our country such as how businesses operate, and even how our education systems now have a great source for expansion of learning. The world wide web should be accessible for countries that our less fortunate to develop the meaning of the web. If it’s low cost , I personally feel in some for that it should be a tool that can help change the structures and systems that has changed the systems of our very own lives. Being in the education system in the Seattle Schools district, I’ve seen first hand how the internet has changed the way students have learned by developing and educating kids. To make this first step of making the web that is available for everyone would open up doors in advancements to connecting people that would have been reachable in decades past.

Questions of the Week

1.What are the steps that people can take towards opening doors for other communities to have web access

2. What does the governemnt think about having the web that is free for everyone to use, but not free to access?

3. What would be the downfall if the web were available to everyone in the world?

 

Craigslist Reflection

For my discussion assignment, I chose the topic of Craigslist for the e-commerce week. The structure for my presentation was about the history and facts about craigslist by giving background information about when it started and general information that others may not know about. I also gave the success story of Kyle Macdonald who traded a red paperclip for a house in about a year.My article was about the marketing tools that are being used to post marketing ads and to use sites such as craigslist.

I thought the overall presentation went really well. Orignially I was suppose to present with everyone else on Monday instead of Wenesday due to a mix up but thankfully I was able to present to the whole class which I really enjoyed. I liked the interactions of that the class had and felt great afterwards.

 

Group Project

In our group we had John, Jamie, Robert, Theo, and I (Quoc) we decided collectively that the best overall news websites was the NPR, and MSNBC. Both websites we thought overall were the best because the clean organazational structure that both had for example MSNBC would display a headline an image next the header with other topics that made it easy to browse and simply easy on the eyes. Videos and multimedia around the headlines were clearly placed without the clutter of ads that tend to get in the way

For the website that had the best integration that could be shared the most was from the Kansas City Tribune the Tribune by far in comparison to other websites. As a group when we saw the website, it had about 20 diffrent links that could be shared.

 

Craigslist is Better than your List

For my presentation, I took an in depth analysis of the history and facts of Craigslist.com and also from an article Online Tools of the trade to find out what and why Craigslist is popular. In my article, by Karen Wagner, she took an business marketing side of apartments and Realtor by giving in sights by numbers and strategies why craigslist works for business now a days posting up ads.

References:

Wagner, Karen L.. Journal of Property Management, Tools of Online Trading , Jul/Aug2008, Vol. 73 Issue 4. http://web.ebscohost.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/ehost/resultsadvanced?vid=3&hid=106&sid=2cb07980-a64b-422f-8b05-86a1b8d243ab%40sessionmgr107&bquery=(craigslist)&bdata=JmRiPWJ0aCZ0eXBlPTEmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl

Craigslist

http://seattle.craigslist.com/

 

Online shopping or bust

Online shopping has changed the way I started to purchase items, I can remember when shopping was just always going to malls or stores to find the things you wanted. As an Oregonian and having the Nike Campus right in my back yard at my parents house, it was hard not to have an obsession of the latest and greatest lines of Jordan’s, Air Max’s you name it and I had it. As a customer, I feel that it’s vitally important for any business now a days to back up any successful company with a great website that consumers can see what products that are available. Call me crazy, but these are the tools that people need to be great business. Now a days with the public even my parents surfing the web, it’s hard for people not to do research online to find companies and it’s vital to back up your company with a great source of information.

How online shopping has helped me is that I can compare and contrast online before investing in anything that I buy. For example, couple months ago I recently bought another LCD television that was 42″ but I spent about 2 months to find a really good deal on my price. How I did it though was of course from the internet using different techniques such as price matching and reading my reviews from different stores and finally bought it after I got the best deal  and saved myself more than a couple hundred dollars. But again there are negatives of e-commerce such as scammers and when you do purchase something online, there’s always a chance of the mailing difficulties. But in this age however I feel blessed that I do not have to waste my energy of getting ready to go to the store, drive my car and purchase things with annoying sales representatives. Because of e-commerce, I can avoid all that mess and the comforts of my own home. Some may call it lazy, but to be honest when I make an invest in anything with this economy I’m trying to get the most bang for my buck with out the breaking of my back.

Q’s of the Week

1. What are the some of issues you have face before with online shopping?

2. In what was you would chance online shopping to make it more like shopping in real life?

3. How has e-commerce effected the way you have purchased things?

 

News Website Experience Round II

Overall I felt that that the website experience was pretty familiar to me. As a I person that checks different newswebsites on a daily basis I felt my eyes were trained already to look for specifics and was very familiar to navigate around. However there was some differences. The ones that stuck out was from the Chicago tribune which a lot more images that were vivid instead of being more text heavy.

I also browsed the WestSeattle Blog which sounds exactlly how it looks. It wasn’t like the other news website but was more like a blog but was pretty easy again to navigate around to find certain things. I did however check the BBC which I also tend to browse around once and awhile and I have to say maybe it’s because it’s international news site but to me it was diffrent from our familiar news sites. But my experience of checking diffrent websites was good, I felt comfortable from having experience of daily checking news websites.

 

News Website Browsing

My experience browsing around were pretty easy. The first news website which was the Atlanta Journal was simplier in contrast to my second website which was the Baltimore Sun. The Atlanta Journal used alot more photo’s and used icons like the RSS feed which was fimiliar to people that would look for it. In comparison the Baltimore Sun was more text heavy to browse around and used very few video around the stories.

Overall both were easy to scroll around to find diffrent articles with the Atlanta Journal easier to find diffrent categories and bright photos.